Happy New Year
Happy New Year and welcome back to Nursery! We hope that you all had a great Christmas. It was lovely to see everyone on Monday morning and hear about your holiday adventures.
This week, we’re reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and children are already beginning to retell the story in our small world area. This story will be our focus for two weeks. If you have a copy of the story at home, please enjoy reading it together. If not, you might like to listen to Mr Tumble reading it.
Children love to join in with the repeated refrains in the story. Can they remember what the Gingerbread man shouts? “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
So far this week, we’ve made Gingerbread Men in the playdough area and counted the buttons for his tummy.
It’s been a cold start to the week, we found lots of ice outside. We brought some of the ice inside to paint. We then explored painting with frozen paint. It was great to paint with, the colours were so bright.
We left pine cones, sticks and leaves outside in a tray full of water overnight. The next morning they had frozen. It was “ cold” “ slippery” “ wet” “ hard” “ freezing”
Lots of the children began to talk about a favourite film ” Frozen” We made our own “Frozen” sensory area. Some items in the tray were frozen and some weren’t. The children enjoyed melting the frozen objects.
We’ve been busy visiting our new families at home visits this week. We’re looking forward to welcoming our new ” green group” for their first sessions next week. It may feel a little bit busier than usual at the start of the day. Please be patient as we help to settle the new children into Nursery.
Help at home
In group time, our sound box had lots of ‘m’ objects including a marble, a mouse, a map and a mirror. What can you find around the house that begins with the ‘m’ sound? What other ‘m’ objects could we have put in our sound bag?
Next week’s learning
Letter next week – ‘d’ for duck
Nursery rhyme next week – The Grand Old Duke of York
Reminders
We play out in ALL weathers at Nursery and at this time of the year, it can be very cold. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear to help keep them warm and happy whilst we play. Please write their name in them too as it’s really helpful when we’re trying to find who they belong to. Thank you in advance.
Christmas is coming
Christmas arrived in Nursery this week. We have been busy getting creative making Christmas cards and decorations. We have also linked our learning in the other areas of provision to the theme of Christmas.
In our Maths area we have been putting the decorations on the trees. To do this we used lots of mathematical counting skills.
Matching the numeral to the quantity 1,2 or 3.
1:1 correspondence – counting carefully by pointing to or moving each decoration as we count.
Cardinality – knowing that the last number spoken is the total number of decorations.
The children loved exploring our Christmas sensory tray, finding objects that “made a noise”, some to “sprinkle”, some that were “soft” and some that were “stretchy”
We made paper chains to decorate nursery, it was a bit tricky to thread them together but we did it.
In the home corner, children enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree and re-creating some experiences from home.
Outside the children loved decorating our winter trees with baubles and tinsel.
We made Christmas trees in the dough, carefully decorating them.
We’ve also been busy rehearsing for our Christmas sing along. We’ve been into the school hall in our costumes to perform for school. The children were amazing and really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for providing their costumes. We are all really looking forward to singing for you all next week.
Help at home
Try using the counting skills we have been learning in nursery by counting a small number of objects e.g. baubles from the tree, bows for presents, candy canes or crackers.
Next week’s learning:
We will listening to the Nativity story.
Reminders
Its a really busy final week of term so here are some reminders
Monday 15 December – 9.00am – Stay and Decorate
Tuesday 16 December – 1.30pm – Early Years Christmas Performance
Wednesday 17 December – 9.45am – Early Years Christmas Performance
Thursday 18 December – 9.00am – Stay and Decorate and Christmas Lunch.
Friday 19 December – Non- uniform and Christmas party ( please remember that the clothes need to be appropriate for a day at nursery. We will be outside too.)
Stick Man
We’ve enjoyed listening to Stick Man by Julia Donaldson this week in our story time sessions. The children used story props to re tell the story to their friends. We use story props in Nursery to help the children to remember the story, it also supports their creativity.
Creativity and storying can happen anywhere in nursery not just in the story corner. Outside there are many great opportunities for creativity. This week our crates became a bus to take us to the zoo where we enjoyed a lovely picnic.
We saw lots of team work, negotiation and turn taking outside this week. We created a track with the drains and stands to roll balls and cars down. It was tricky to join the pieces together, so that the balls kept rolling and to catch them at the end. But, we did it!
More team work and some fiddly fingers were needed when we all helped to put up our Christmas tree. We hope you like it ! We are looking forward to starting our Christmas activities in Nursery next week.
We’ve also been busy learning our Christmas songs, maybe you’ve been hearing them at home? We can’t wait to sing them at our Christmas sing- a long.
Help at home
Can you find some long and short objects around the house? Which is the longest piece of tinsel on your Christmas tree? Which is the shortest?
Let us know what you find.
Next week’s learning:
We’ll continue reading Stickman by Julia Donaldson.
In maths, we continue to learn about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be busy learning songs for our sing – a long, so please keep singing your favourite rhymes together at home.
Here is a reminder of the Nursery rhymes we have covered this half term
Wind the Bobbin up.
Hickory Dickory Dock.
1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive.
Twinkle twinkle Little Star.
Sound of the week – N n for net
Open your lips a bit, put your tongue behind your teeth and make a nnnnnn sound.
Reminders:
- Please send your child’s costume to Nursery by Monday 08 December. Remember to write your child’s name on all items of their costume and the bag. Thank you for your support.
- If you haven’t already returned your reply slip for the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions, please do so this week.
We hope that you have happy and healthy weekend.
How To Catch A Star
Literacy
This week our focus story was ‘How to Catch a Star‘ by Oliver Jeffers. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip). We read the book and spent time retelling the story in our own words.
Phonics
During our recent Phonics lessons we’ve been expanding our digraph knowledge. Digraphs are two letters that make one sound. Here are the ones we now know so far:
ck, ss, ll, ff, zz, qu, ch, sh, th, ng, nk
Help at home: you could write these digraphs on paper to play with your child. They’d be great as flashcards to practise or if you made two sets, you could play games such as Snap or Matching Pairs. You also hide one pack around the house and then use the other as a prompt to find the right one.
The Phonics challenge in class this week was to challenge a friend to a Tricky Word Boo game. You need to read as many words as you can and collect them in a bowl as you go. Be careful though! If you come across the word ‘Boo’ – you need to put all your words back. The winner is the person with the most cards at the end.
Help at home: You could play a game of Tricky Word Boo at home.
Word Of The Week
Our word of the week this week is ‘reflection‘.
We use this song to help us practise the word of the week in class:
Poetry Picnic
Each week we learn a new poem and we recite this poem every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called ‘Mice’ by Rose Fyleman.
Here’s Sunshine Class reciting it 🙂
Maths
After watching an episode of Numberblocks, we enjoyed making our own Stampoline prints to show different ways of making 5.
Help at home: You could watch the Stampolines episode with your child
PE
During our PE lessons, we’ve been using the large equipment in the hall to practise our balancing skills. Balancing is one of the fundamental movement skills. It is a key skill for many sports such as tennis, gymnastics, football, ballet, dance, golf and many more.
Winter weather
The winter weather is well and truly here. We had fun in our outdoor classroom mark making in the frost with paint brushes and water and being ice detectives.
Whatever Next!
This week, we listened to another of Jill Murphy’s stories titled ‘Whatever Next!’. It’s about a little bear who went on an adventure to the moon. This story led to lots of conversations about space and rockets. We watched a rocket blast off into space and joining in with the countdown from 10. We created our own space station in our small world area and blasted our own rockets in to space ….. blast off!
In the story baby bear makes his own space rocket from a cardboard box. We decided to make our own rockets in the creative area using different shaped boxes and bottles. It was quite tricky working out how to attach the different parts together.
We enjoyed singing the number rhyme “5 Little men in a flying saucer” this week. Showing the amounts on our fingers as we sang the song. The children are getting really good at this important mathematical skill.
Help at home: Can you sing a number song at home and use you fingers to show the amount?
Here are some number songs to try.
1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive.
Next week’s learning:
We are looking forward to reading ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson in our story times next week. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the BBC animation together.
In maths, we’re learning about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Sound of the week
i for iguana
Pull your lips back and make the i sound at the back of your mouth.
Nursery rhyme of the week –
Twinkle, twinkle little star
Reminders
Please return the Christmas slip to let us know if you can attend one of our ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions in December. Please see the letter for more details of dates and times.
We hope that you have a happy and healthy weekend.
Our trip to the Hepwortth, Wakefield
What a fantastic day we had yesterday on our school trip to the Hepworth Art Gallery in Wakefield. This was the first trip of the year for our Year One children. They behaved brilliantly and represented the school very well.
We had so much fun on the bus! We then took part in a workshop where we looked at lots of sculptures made by Barbara Hepworth.
We then had a go at making our own art and did some fantastic printmaking.
After that, we had lunch before looking around the art galleries and spotting lots of primary and secondary colours.
Thank you so much to our adult volunteers for coming on the trip yesterday. We had so much fun!
Snow and Ice
On Wednesday morning our Nursery garden was covered in a thin layer of snow. We were so excited and couldn’t wait to get outside. We tried to catch the snowflakes, it was very tricky!
On Thursday morning we found ice everywhere! We collected it all to explore. It melted quickly when we broke it up.
We decided to try to make our own ice. We put some water in a tray and left it outside in the Nursery garden. Would it turn into ice over night?
Yes, it would!
We felt the ice.
“It’s so cold”
” It is wet and slippy”
We looked through the ice.
“It’s like a window”
“I see through it”
Help at home: Can you make some ice at home? You could try and make some outside overnight or use your freezer. Try freezing a small toy or object in the water and watch it appear as the ice melts. Let us know how you get on. As always send us in your photos to scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’re going to read another of our favourite stories written by Jill Murphy. It’s called ‘Whatever Next‘
Nursery rhyme of the week – 1,2 ,3 ,4 5, Once I caught a fish alive.
We’ll also be singing a number rhyme 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Sound of the week –P p (p for penguin)
Bring your lips together push them open and say p, p, p.
Reminders
- Check your child’s going home folder this week for a letter about Christmas in Nursery.
- Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, hat and gloves every day. All named please. We play in our garden throughout winter, so children need to be wrapped up to keep warm and enjoy learning outside in all seasons.
Our weekly message: Friday 21 November 2025
In case you missed our earlier message… Last week was Children in Need day. Our non-uniform day raised £354.99 – thank you to all who contributed.
Attendance matters
- The national attendance rate for primary schools is 95.4% (that’s for Autumn 1 term).
- Our attendance rate is 95.5% (that’s up until 18 November).
It’s good to see that our attendance is higher, even if just a little. However, it’s lower than it was for Autumn term last year.
Is my child too ill to attend school? It can be tricky deciding whether or not to keep your child off school. Check the NHS website: Is my child too ill for school?
Thinking of a term-time holiday? 468 penalty notices for unauthorised absences have been issued in Leeds so far this year. Check out the legal consequences of term-time absences, from fines to court action.
Applying for a Reception place?
The national closing date for Reception September 2026 applications is 15 January 2026.
Check out these frequently asked questions.
MindMate
On Wednesday, the MindMate Support Team held a workshop about supporting your child with anxiety.
There are three more support sessions coming up this year:
-
Support your child’s mental wellbeing – Wednesday 11 February, 5pm to 6pm at Deighton Gates Primary School, Deighton Rd, Wetherby, LS22 7XL
-
Support your child’s emotions – Wednesday 11 March, 5pm to 6pm at Bramham Primary School, Clifford Road, Bramham, LS23 6JQ
-
Support your child with transition – Wednesday 24 June, 5pm to 6pm at our Sphere Federation sister school, St James’ CE Primary School, Hallfield Lane, Wetherby, LS22 6JS
Read more about the workshops.
Year 5 reading
Scholes (Elmet) Primary has been selected to represent England in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) research.
PIRLS is an international educational assessment study which takes place in over 60 countries. Our school will participate alongside other schools from around the world.
The assessments will involve some children in Year 5 completing a computer-based assessment and questionnaire about themselves and their educational experiences.
Read more about the research in this letter from the Department for Education.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
Colours in the sky
The children were very excited when they returned to Nursery. They excitedly shared their stories about Halloween with their friends. There was a lot of talk about witches, bat costumes and skeletons.
Wednesday was Bonfire Night, the children played with the bonfire themed small world area adding the sounds of the fireworks to their play. “whoosh, bang, zoom, whizz”
Along with hearing lots of different sounds the children had seen lots of bright colours in the night sky. They used ” sparklers” to print firework pictures. Outside they painted the dark floor to create the Bonfire Night sky.
Some more fire work activities in the sensory and fine motor areas of nursery.
As part of our phonics learning, we’ve introduced the letter ‘s’ this week. We took turns to pull some objects out of a bag that all started with the letter ‘s’ We talked about the ‘s’ sound that we could hear at the start of each word. In Nursery, we focus on our listening skills. We’re not learning about letter formation just yet.
We show the children this picture card and use this pronunciation phrase.
Show your teeth and let the s hiss out ssssss
You could try this at home.
Help at home: What can you find at home that begins with the sound ‘s’? Go on a sound hunt together and look for some. Let us know what you find.
Next week’s Learning
It’s World Nursery Rhyme Week so instead of our usual Nursery Rhyme of the week, our provision will be Nursery Rhyme themed. We’ll be singing lots of our favourite rhymes. If you’d like to send us an email with your child’s favourite rhyme and we’ll try to sing it at Nursery next week. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Sound of the week – Aa for astronaut and apple
Open your mouth wide and make the a sound at the back of your mouth a a a
Story of the week – Peace at Last by Jill Murphy
In this story Mr Bear moves about the house to try to find somewhere that is quiet to sleep. We will find out how many different sounds he hears.
Reminders
It’s a very busy week next week
- It’s “Odd Socks Day” on Monday 10 November so wear odd socks to Nursery for the day
- Our Nursery Coffee morning is on Tuesday 11 November straight after drop off at 9am. This is your chance to enjoy a coffee and a catch up with other nursery parents. Mrs Beesley and one of our school leaders will be there to share what is happening this this term in nursery with you.
- It’s Children in Need on Friday and it’s a non-uniform day. Please remember it will be a usual Nursery day, so please dress your child in clothes that are appropriate for outdoor and messy play.
Have a happy and healthy weekend everyone.
Applying for a Reception school place 2026
Applications for a Reception place for September 2026 can be made from 01 November 2025 until 15 January 2026.
You will receive your child’s school offer on National Offer Day, April 16, 2026. Ensure you use your child’s permanent address when applying, as this is a key factor in the admissions process.
If you’d like to come and look around our school, the next open sessions are on Tuesday 04 November at 6pm and Friday 21 November at 1.30pm. No need to book just turn up!
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place even if your child attends Scholes (Elmet) Nursery.